Merle McGee: Building a Better World by Eliminating Barriers

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This article was posted on Non-Profit Quarterly by “our readers” on NOVEMBER 16, 2016.

“There’s nothing greater for me than the experience of being with a young person, or traveling the world with a young person, and witnessing their awakening to what’s possible.

What I understand now, as a person who’s had some time and experience in the sector, is that the circumstances under which people arrive in crisis are really influenced by larger structural realities of what is available to them in life. How we think about people living in poverty or in under-resourced communities is often driven by this flawed “personal responsibility” narrative that doesn’t take into account the contextual realties of why someone is in the circumstances that they’re in. I believe the work I do now is both striving to create opportunities and access within communities that are marginalized or neglected and focused on amplifying, deconstructing, and absolute truth-telling about the institutional and structural barriers that create obstacles to equity.”